Why this Blog ?
News articles in the Wide World of Web, quite often disappear with time, when they are relocated as archives with a different url. Archives in this blog serve as a library for those who are interested in doing Research on Aadhaar Related Topics.

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When I opposed Aadhaar in 2010 , I was called a BJP stooge. In 2016 I am still opposing Aadhaar for the same reasons and I am told I am a Congress die hard. No one wants to see why I oppose Aadhaar as it is too difficult. Plus Aadhaar is FREE so why not get one ? Ram Krishnaswamy

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -Mahatma Gandhi

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.Mahatma Gandhi

“The invasion of privacy is of no consequence because privacy is not a fundamental right and has no meaning under Article 21. The right to privacy is not a guaranteed under the constitution, because privacy is not a fundamental right.” Article 21 of the Indian constitution refers to the right to life and liberty -Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi

“There is merit in the complaints. You are unwittingly allowing snooping, harassment and commercial exploitation. The information about an individual obtained by the UIDAI while issuing an Aadhaar card shall not be used for any other purpose, save as above, except as may be directed by a court for the purpose of criminal investigation.” -A three judge bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar said in an interim order.

Legal scholar Usha Ramanathandescribes UID as an inverse of sunshine laws like the Right to Information. While the RTI makes the state transparent to the citizen, the UID does the inverse: it makes the citizen transparent to the state, she says.

Good idea gone badI have written earlier that UID/Aadhaar was a poorly designed, unreliable and expensive solution to the really good idea of providing national identification for over a billion Indians. My petition contends that UID in its current form violates the right to privacy of a citizen, guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. This is because sensitive biometric and demographic information of citizens are with enrolment agencies, registrars and sub-registrars who have no legal liability for any misuse of this data. This petition has opened up the larger discussion on privacy rights for Indians. The current Article 21 interpretation by the Supreme Court was done decades ago, before the advent of internet and today’s technology and all the new privacy challenges that have arisen as a consequence.Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP Rajya Sabha

“What is Aadhaar? There is enormous confusion. That Aadhaar will identify people who are entitled for subsidy. No. Aadhaar doesn’t determine who is eligible and who isn’t,” Jairam Ramesh

But Aadhaar has been mythologised during the previous government by its creators into some technology super force that will transform governance in a miraculous manner. I even read an article recently that compared Aadhaar to some revolution and quoted a 1930s historian, Will Durant. Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Rajya Sabha MP

“I know you will say that it is not mandatory. But, it is compulsorily mandatorily voluntary,” Jairam Ramesh, Rajya Saba April 2017

Special

Here is what the Parliament Standing Committee on Finance, which examined the draft N I A Bill said.

1. There is no feasibility study of the project]

2. The project was approved in haste

3. The system has far-reaching consequences for national security

4. The project is directionless with no clarity of purpose

5. It is built on unreliable and untested technology

6. The exercise becomes futile in case the project does not continue beyond the present number of 200 million enrolments

7. There is lack of coordination and difference of views between various departments and ministries of government on the project

"All we have to show for the hundreds of thousands of crore spent on Aadhar is a Congress ticket for Nilekani" Yashwant Sinha.(27/02/2014)

TV Mohandas Pai, former chief financial officer and head of human resources, tweeted: "selling his soul for power; made his money in the company wedded to meritocracy." Money Life Article

Nilekani’s reporting structure is unprecedented in history; he reports directly to the Prime Minister, thus bypassing all checks and balances in government - Home Minister Chidambaram

To refer to Aadhaar as an anti corruption tool despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary is mystifying. That it is now officially a Rs.50,000 Crores solution searching for an explanation is also without any doubt. -- Statement by Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP & Member, Standing Committee on Finance

Finance minister P Chidambaram’s statement, in an exit interview to this newspaper, that Aadhaar needs to be re-thought completely is probably the last nail in its coffin. :-) Financial Express

The Rural Development Ministry headed byJairam Rameshcreated a road Block and refused to make Aadhaar mandatory for making wage payment to people enrolled under the world’s largest social security scheme NRGA unless all residents are covered.

DBT 2.0 envisages the use of post offices and roping in the friendly postman as a delivery agent for door-to-door disbursal of payments.

DBT 2.0 envisages the use of post offices and roping in the friendly postman as a delivery agent for door-to-door disbursal of payments, including wages for rural jobs and subsidy for fuels, food and fertilisers.

So near, yet so far. From the perspective of most people who live in the villages, that's probably the best way to sum up how what is probably the world's largest benefit transfer programme has fared.

The exercise - Direct Benefit Transfer - is undoubtedly mammoth. Transferring Rs 6,000 crore ($900 million) of subsidies and wages electronically every month to the bank accounts of 30 crore people is only the first and easy part of the process. The problem starts after that.

Going to the bank to withdraw the money is proving to be the bane of the scheme for folks in rural India, where most of the recipients live. Reason? The poor presence of bank branches and ATMs.

"Last-mile connectivity is the biggest hurdle to the DBT scheme...Earlier, people had to make the rounds of government offices to get their payments and now they have to make the rounds of banks, which may be 10-15 km away from their village," a Cabinet Secretariat official told ET. "They spend some money - maybe Rs 50 or so - to get to the bank for getting their payment, which usually ranges between Rs 300 and Rs 500 and waste a day's work in the process... Many times, the bank is open only for a few hours."

The problem has caught the attention of the government, which is planning a massive reboot of the scheme. DBT 2.0 envisages the use of post offices and roping in the friendly postman as a delivery agent for door-to-door disbursal of payments, including wages for rural jobs and subsidy for fuels, food and fertilisers.

A new 'action plan' is ready after the existing financial infrastructure at the panchayat level was mapped out jointly by various wings of the government over the past four months, according to senior officials in the Prime Minister's Office, the Cabinet Secretariat and various ministries. Implementing a revised scheme by March 2017 has become the Modi government's top priority.

"Unless financial inclusion reaches the doorstep, it is a DBT well-begun but halfdone," the official said. In December, Anjuly Chib Duggal, secretary in the department of financial services in the finance ministry, told a committee of secretaries that out of 1.26 lakh bank branches in the country, only 48,872 - less than 40% - operated in the rural areas and most of them were staffed by two or three officials, which was quite inadequate to handle the workload.

"The outreach of banking and financial services is far less than required in rural and far-flung areas and these deficiencies adversely affect last-mile connectivity," Duggal said at the meeting chaired by Cabinet secretary PK Sinha.

Then rural development secretary JK Mohapatra said at the meeting that banking services were not available in a majority of the 2.56 lakh gram panchayats in the country. A gram panchayat is a unit of selfgovernance representing one or a cluster of two or three villages. Many villagers had to travel several kilometres to reach a bank to withdraw the money credited into their accounts, imposing an additional cost on them.

"This may well turn the DBT scheme unpopular," a senior official conceded. There are about 6 lakh inhabited villages in India and about half of the rural population lives in about 1.15 lakh villages, according to the 2011 Census data.

It's not that the government hadn't fathomed the problem when DBT was rolled out in entire country last year. It floated the concept of bank mitras, or banking correspondents, who would go house-to-house to disburse payments through micro-ATMs.

Each of the 1.47 lakh bank mitras had to cover territory within a 5km radius. The bank mitra model was "still in a nascent stage and needed a big push," Duggal told the government in December. It was subsequently revealed that at any given point of time, only about 40,000 bank mitras were working last year, according to top officials.

"The problem was that the viability of the commercial module of bank mitras was left to the banks. There was a high attrition rate and the bank mitras were not found to be accessible. We reviewed the situation lately, tracking the bank mitras on GPS. Today, we have 1.08 lakh active bank mitras," a senior PMO official said. 'Active' status means a minimum of one transaction every three days.

"That is just not enough. Actually, the number of bank mitras doing 25-30 transactions daily is half of the active number," a senior government official conceded. Surprisingly, it is not that a bank mitra is paid less. "One gets paid Rs 2,500-5,000 per month as retainership plus a percentage of each transaction. Many bank mitras earn even Rs 30,000 per month," an official told ET. The new strategy, top government officials told ET, is to involve post offices and postmen in the exercise.

"The overall aim is to have at least two-three alternative systems in every village for payment of DBT - apart from bank mitras, post offices and postmen will be a major addition," a senior PMO official told ET. There are about 1.55 lakh post offices in India and about 1.38 lakh of them are in core rural areas.

"This huge presence and post offices and postmen being part of the social fabric in rural India is a major asset. The same will be used in a major way from March 2017 for DBT distribution," the senior PMO official said.

The March 2017 deadline is to bring all 1.38 lakh village post offices on the core banking solution platform, which allows a customer to operate an account from any branch. In the past four months, the system has been implemented in 25,000 urban post offices.

The village post offices in turn have 1.29 lakh postmen who will also serve as bank representatives to deliver DBT payments at the doorstep using hand-held devices.

The key to the success of DBT Version 2.0 is Aadhaar, the unique identification number assigned to residents of India. All DBT bank accounts need to be linked to Aadhaar to facilitate biometric authentication through the hand-held devices that will be used to disburse payments at the doorstep.

That's where the rub lies - Aadhaar seeding requires a major push. Only about 42% of the 20 crore Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan accounts are linked to Aadhaar and in the case of beneficiaries of jobs offered under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, it is 58%.

The job guarantee programme is the toughest hurdle as it is the biggest DBT scheme under which Rs 3,265 crore is disbursed every month and all the recipients live in rural areas. Currently, rural job wages to the tune of Rs 2,504 crore are made through electronic fund transfers without the use of Aadhaar.

"The low seeding of Aadhaar in the DBT beneficiary database (52.5%), lower amount of money transferred through the Aadhaarbased payment system (27.81%) and last-mile connectivity are the main hurdles in taking forward DBT," according to the minutes of the committee of secretaries meeting in December.

Aadhaar coverage crossed the 100 crore people mark in April and is now at 93% of all people aged 18 and above. About 25.48 crore bank accounts are now linked with the unique identity number.

"With the Aadhaar bill now being passed, the stress is on the seeding of the bank accounts with Aadhaar. This is now being done on campaign mode by departments," an official said.

Another DBT strategy being implemented is the distribution of food subsidy from the country's 5.45 lakh fair price shops by automating them - a target of 3 lakh has been set for March 2017.

"At present, only 75,000 fair price shops are automated. Once this automation is done, food subsidy can be given from fair price shops," an official said. "We are also looking at exploring the recently RBI-notified 11 payment banks like Airtel Money and Paytm, which can offer DBT services through mobile banking and e-wallets and have their own banking correspondents to deliver DBT," the official added. DBT 2.0 is on its way.

Aadhaar is not compulsory — it is just a voluntary “facility.” UIDAI's concept note stresses that “enrolment will not be mandated.” But there is a catch: “... benefits and services that are linked to the UID will ensure demand for the number.” This is like selling bottled water in a village after poisoning the well, and claiming that people are buying water voluntarily. The next sentence is also ominous: “This will not, however, preclude governments or Registrars from mandating enrolment.”

John Dreze,Visiting Prof of Economics, Uni of Allahabad, Ex-NAC Member

UID project is full of ambiguity, confusions and suspicions, but no answers -Usha Ramanathan

The Reserve Bank says Aadhaar is not good enough to open a bank account

You can Beat the UID reader with candle wax and Fevicol - J.T.D Souza

The very premise of Aadhar is flawed

It is a certification that those who claim to think on behalf of India or its underprivileged understand it so differently from the beneficiaries they think of.

In a nutshell, Aadhar will not bring about any of the benefits that are intended for its intended beneficiaries. Because that will be solving a problem of governance by adding another layer, that is imaginary and unnecessary.

To call it "technological leadership" is as removed from reality as calling a reader a writer of the book. At best it will mean that we can take a technology and ram it down the throat of the poor while other nations with stronger democratic roots and respect for citizens have not been able to do so for reasons of building consensus.

"Aadhar" is like dropping a car by helicopter in a village where there is no road and hope every villager can reach wherever they may want to go.

For anyone willing to think, Aadhar is a reflection of the huge disconnect that India has from both the world of the under privileged and the rest of the world.

Aadhaar the Last Nail in UPA II's Coffin

"All we have to show for the hundreds of thousands of crore spent on Aadhar is a Congress ticket for Nilekani" Yashwant Sinha.(27/02/2014)

UID NOT UBIQUITOUS ANY LONGER MR. NILEKANI - TRUTH HAS PREVAILED JUST BEFORE THE ELECTIONS.

WhatsApp gained users because it was useful, and people wanted to download and use it. Aadhaar, sadly, cannot be said to have "users" yet. There are as yet few uses. This is why Mr Nilekani has to emphasise the number of enrolments, not the benefits that flow from Aadhaar - because those exist today only in theory. And the simple fact is that enrolments should not be seen as a sign of success. The Only Good Idea - Business Standard

"Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it." - Mark Twain

TV Mohandas Pai, former chief financial officer and head of human resources, tweeted: "selling his soul for power; made his money in the company wedded to meritocracy." Money Life Article

The expose shows how citizens of Nepal and Bangladesh are offered Aadhaar cards without identity proof. The sting reveals that even MLAs and gazetted officers sign on the forged documents to make Aadhaar cards. IBN Live

To refer to Aadhaar as an anti corruption tool despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary is mystifying. That it is now officially a Rs.50,000 Crores solution searching for an explanation is also without any doubt. -- Statement by Rajeev Chandrasekhar,MP & Member, Standing Committee on Finance

Finance minister P Chidambaram’s statement, in an exit interview to this newspaper, that Aadhaar needs to be re-thought completely is probably the last nail in its coffin. :-) Financial Express

Please think through before supporting UID/ Aadhaar, so you do not regret your decision.

Emphasising the need for separation of powers, James Madison bluntly observed in his essay, Federalist 51."Because men are not angels," they need government to prevent them, by force when necessary, from invading the lives, property, and liberty of their fellow citizens. He also noted that the same non-angelic men can wield the government’s coercive machinery to use it tyrannically—even in a democracy.

·The Rural Development Ministry headed by Jairam Ramesh created a road Block and refused to make Aadhaar mandatory for making wage payment to people enrolled under the world’s largest social security scheme NRGA unless all residents are covered.

·Nilekani’s reporting structure is unprecedented in history; he reports directly to the Prime Minister, thus bypassing all checks and balances in government - Home Minister Chidambaram

·AaAdhaar is not compulsory — it is just a voluntary “facility.” UIDAI's concept note stresses that “enrolment will not be mandated.” But there is a catch: “... benefits and services that are linked to the UID will ensure demand for the number.” This is like selling bottled water in a village after poisoning the well, and claiming that people are buying water voluntarily. The next sentence is also ominous: “This will not, however, preclude governments or Registrars from mandating enrolment.” John Dreze, Visiting Prof of Economics, Uni of Allahabad, Ex-NAC Member

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”Mahatma Gandhi

"Protest is not something you delegate, politics is not something you outsource. It is what you stand for literally"Shiv Visvanathan, Indian Express.

"Whenever I despair, I remember that the way of truth and love has always won. There may be tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they may seem invincible, but in the end, they always fail. Think of it: always. "Mahatma Gandhi

"The function of a civil resistance is to provoke response and we will continue to provoke until they respond or change the law. They are not in control; we are."Mahatma Gandhi

"Let us begin by being clear... about General Smuts' new law. All Indians must now be fingerprinted... like criminals. Men and women. No marriage other than a Christian marriage is considered valid. Under this act our wives and mothers are whores. And every man here is a bastard."-Mahatma Gandhi

"It is easy to laugh at people who fire arrows at helicopter gunships, but on the other hand it is not so easy to defeat people who are willing to fire arrows at helicopter gunships."Vietnam: A War Lost And Won' authored by Nigel Cawthorne

You can fool all the people sometimes,You can fool some people all the time,But you cannot fool all the people all the time.Truth Shall prevail.Satyameva Jayate.

Aadhaar was meant to deduplicate peoples id's and Aadhaar itself is a Duplicate of NPR and needs deduplication according to Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC) headed by Secretary Sumit Bose.

Which is the bigger crime a poor family double dipping on PDS to stay alive or Govt wasting mega bucks on a white elephant called Aadhaar ?

Remember Aadhaar is not an ID card but just a Number to authenticate and tell you if you are in fact you and UIDAI will splurge Rs1.5 lakh crores ( Rs 1,500, 000, 000,000 ) in the next five years. What do people with Aadhaar get in return ? A lot of empty promises. It won't take long for people in India to wake up and understand what is going on.

How do we explain Loss of Privacy?Privacy is like our VISION.We will appreciate its loss when we go BLIND.

Massive collection of Video Clips on Unique Identity. Click on this Link http://flotadaslimaymedio.com.ar/tag/unique-identification/orderby-relevance/page1.html

WHAT AM I ?????"Yes, it is voluntary. But the service providers might make it mandatory. In the long run, I wouldn't call it compulsory. I would rather say that it will become ubiquitous"Nandan Nilekani, UIDAI Chairman (Excerpts from a conversation with Sadiq Naqvi and Akash Bisht) Answer: Aadhaar, the Unique Identity number & a Bar Code that each and every Indian will be branded with linked to a National Database maintained by UIDAI, with Help from L1 Identity a US Multinational.

"Opponents of the Aadhaar number have included advocates of privacy rights. The number however, is linked to limited personal information, with no profiling data included. Submitting a father’s name for example, is not required, allowing residents to adopt any name of their choosing and free themselves from caste identification."Nandan Nilekani's personal Opinion1061 - We have your number - OUTLOOK

Do all Indians want to become Numbers and be tracked like animals ?Do we have a Choice ?

IF IT TAKES SIX MONTHS TO ISSUE ONE MILLION NOT SO UINQUE IDENTITIES, HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE TO ISSUE 600 MILLION OR 1.2 BILLION UNIQUE IDENTITIES ?

WORDS OF WISDOM

“In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.”Mahatma Gandhi"I have never known legislation of this nature being directed against free men in any part of the world. I know that indentured Indians in Natal are subject to a drastic system of passes, but these poor fellows can hardly be classed as free men."Mahatma Gandhi"...giving of finger prints, required by the Ordinance, was quite a novelty in South Africa. With a view to seeing some literature on the subject, I read a volume on finger impressions by Mr. Henry, a police officer, from which I gathered that finger prints were required by law only from criminals."Mahatma Gandhi"Democracy was the greatest gift of our freedom struggle to the people of India. Independence made the nation free. Democracy made our people free. A free people are a people who are governed by their will and ruled with their consent. A free people are a people who participate in decisions affecting their lives and their destinies".Rajiv Gandhi “How shall a democracy ensure its secret intelligence apparatus becomes neither a vehicle for conspiracy nor a suppressor of traditional liberties of democratic self-government?”Vice-President Hamid Ansari, Hi-tech without Panchayati Raj is just a bogus stunt for geeks and nerds."Mani Shankar Aiyar, Congress leaderAadhaar is not compulsory — it is just a voluntary “facility.” UIDAI's concept note stresses that “enrolment will not be mandated.” But there is a catch: “... benefits and services that are linked to the UID will ensure demand for the number.” This is like selling bottled water in a village after poisoning the well, and claiming that people are buying water voluntarily. The next sentence is also ominous: “This will not, however, preclude governments or Registrars from mandating enrolment.”John Dreze, Visiting Prof of Economics, Uni of Allahabad, National Advisory Committee Member"It is a Bad Idea to Marry UID with NREGA"Reetika Kehera"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."Ayn Rand “The twentieth century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy”.Alex Carey, a noted Australian activist."People willing to trade freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both."Ben Franklin.Liberty has never come from the government; it has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of limitation of governmental power, not the increase of it."Woodrow Wilson"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing".Edmund Burke"Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist".Edmund Burke"Clearly, there is no longer such a thing as a safe electronic archive, whatever computing's snake-oil salesmen claim. No organisation can treat digitised communication as confidential. An electronic secret is a contradiction in terms".Simon Jenkins, Guardian UK“Privacy is not something that people feel, except in its absence. Remove it and you destroy something at the heart of being human.”Phil Booth, National co-ordinator of the campaign No2IDIn reality, Aadhaar intrudes into people's privacy that is hidden under the guise of reaching out.Srijit Mishra

Ten things you must know about UID

Some facts about the UID project that Indian residents should be aware of:

1. Aadhaar (the UID number) is not mandatory. People can choose not to be a part of the exercise.2. It is not restricted to Indian citizens only and is meant for residents of India, irrespective of their citizenship. An Aadhaar card does not establish citizenship of India, it is meant for identification.3. Even people without proper identification documents can apply for Aadhaar. Authorised individuals, who already have an Aadhaar, can introduce residents who don't possess any documents to establish their identity to enable them to receive their Aadhaar.4. Aadhar will not replace other identification documents such as ration card or passport.5. The UIDAI will collect only biometric and demographic information about an individual and will not ask for info on caste, religion or language.6. Date of Birth is optional (for people who don't remember/know their date of birth) and approximate age will suffice.7. Transgenders have been included in the options under gender and they need not classify themselves as male or female.8. Residents of India have an option to link their UID number to their bank accounts.9. To get an UID number residents will have to go to the nearest Aadhaar enrollment camp, details of which will be published in the local media. Residents will have to carry along certain documents, mentioned in the advertisement. Residents will also be photographed and have their fingerprints and iris scanned. The Aadhaar numbers will be issued within 20-30 days.10. The draft National Identification Authority of India bill has provisions against impersonation, providing false information and for protection of personal information collected by the UIDAI. Violations can attract penalties in the form of fines of up to Rs 1 crore and imprisonment extending up to a life term.